Tappening: Bottled Water Made from Melted Ice Caps and Polar Bear Tears

Founded in 2007, Tappening is an educational campaign designed to encourage the public to drink tap water whenever possible, and to send a message to the bottled water industry about its unnecessary and extreme waste of fossil fuels and resultant pollution of the Earth. Recently, they’ve taken aim at how bottled water is marketed.

Veterans of the advertising and branding industry, the folks behind Tappening launched an advertising campaign late last month to challenge what they call “the notion of Truth in Advertising while embracing an opposing concept. Lying.” Undoubtedly inspired by the Truth anti-smoking campaign, they are claiming that filtered tap water marketed with luxurious cascades flowing from snow-covered mountain-top springs is as much malarkey as the idea of smoking a Marlboro is a) cool and b) will equate you to a rugged, all-American cowboy impervious to all danger.

“Puffery is one thing, but some advertising is simply lies. I’ve observed that there are two types who perpetrate this: Those who admit it and those who don’t,” noted Tappening co-founder, Mark DiMassimo in a press release. DiMassimo’s partner added: “We’re not just admitting it up front, we’re bragging about it. We want people to know we’re blatantly lying in our new campaign…and, most importantly, that everyone should pay close attention to what’s factual in marketing and what’s – not so much.”

In the spirit of the times, Tappening is also seeking to crowdsource the campaign by inviting members of the public to create their own bottled water fallacy. To help start your own lie about bottled water, visit www.startalie.com.

Ashwin is an Associate Editor of Triple Pundit. He recently returned to the Bay Area after living in Argentina, where he wholeheartedly missed the Pacific Ocean. He is a freelance editor and media and marketing consultant.After a brief stint working in the wine world, when not staring blankly at a computer screen, you'll find him working on Anand Confections or at 826 Valencia, where he has been a long-time volunteer.